A Disaster Exposes our Race and Class Fault Lines

Background and ongoing impacts

A disaster exposes our race and class fault lines
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck the US Gulf Coast in August and September 2005, forcing over 1.5 million people from their homes and killing more than 1,000. The storm and the breaching of the levees in New Orleans destroyed or damaged close to 300,000 houses. The disaster devastated an environment, shattered a regional economy, and emptied a major city.

But the storm itself was just one part of the disaster. Entrenched inequalities based on race and class — along with massive institutional failure — turned the natural disaster into a man-made catastrophe. This catastrophe laid bare our societal fault lines, race and class, which determine people's vulnerability in disaster. Where you were in society when the storm hit largely determined how you were able to pick up the pieces of your life.

Today, almost three years after Hurricane Katrina pummeled the Gulf Coast, communities across Louisiana and Mississippi are still struggling to restore their homes and their lives. People of color and low-income communities have found it particularly hard to return and rebuild because they have less access to wealth, resources, and decision-making power. Many lower-income and less-wealthy families whose homes were damaged have limited financial means to repair or rebuild them. Many more residents are still unable to return to their neighborhoods because of increasingly scarce and increasingly expensive rental property or the closure of public housing. Infrastructure, public education, and health services — poorly funded even before the storm — remain woefully inadequate to serve communities. Government aid programs have been a maze of confusion, inefficiency, power struggles, and red tape.

UUSC's approach and ongoing work

Rebuilding the Gulf Coast with equity
Immediately after the storm, UUSC joined the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) to form the UUA-UUSC Gulf Coast Relief Fund. Our response to the crisis on the Gulf Coast follows a vision of rebuilding towards justice. We feel that the communities that have suffered most — both during the hurricane and in its aftermath — unjustly suffered because of our society's underlying racial and class inequalities and discrimination. Ultimately, our goal has been to strengthen the already-existing movement of communities marginalized by race and class in their efforts to return home and have an active voice in the just and equitable rebuilding of the Gulf Coast.

Over the last three years, we have partnered with more than 40 community groups and organizations in rural and urban areas of Mississippi and Louisiana. We have distributed over $2.25 million to support grassroots organizations led by, and representing, people of color in their efforts to return and rebuild. We have also supported Gulf Coast communities through the activism and solidarity of UUSC members and Unitarian Universalists around the country-over 2,000 of whom have volunteered in Gulf Coast communities and donated over 57,000 hours of service.

Strengthening community organizations and addressing critical issues
With the guidance of our Gulf Coast partners, we recognized that vulnerable people, without strong organizations to struggle for and with them, would not be able to return to and participate in the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast. There are still many obstacles to returning, including a lack of affordable housing and social services, and few recovery programs that prioritize low-income communities.

Strengthening community organizations was essential to resisting the bulldozing of entire neighborhoods and raising awareness among all affected groups about their right to return and rebuild. Some outcomes of this support included:

• Stopping the bulldozing of the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans;
• Preventing the bulldozing of Phoenix in Plaquemines Parish, La., and helping residents rebuild their community;
• Bridging the language and cultural gap between survivors and aid workers in the Vietnamese community in New Orleans.

There are many interests at stake in the rebuilding process, and because marginalized communities face the highest barriers to return, they also face the greatest risk of not having their voices heard. We have worked to counterbalance this risk by supporting both new and established grassroots groups advocating for the participation of low-income communities and communities of color in the rebuilding process. Some outcomes of this support included:

• Developing community reconstruction plans and neighborhood viability plans in Louisiana and Mississippi so that communities had proposals to bring to the decision-making table;
• Training and deploying a team of neighborhood organizers in the 9^th Ward in New Orleans to strengthen the movement to return and rebuild;
• Including evacuees in a rebuilding plan in New Orleans.

Practical issues can't be ignored. By supporting crucial efforts to meet people's immediate needs, we have helped offset the lack of broad-scale assistance necessary to enable people to return and rebuild their home and their lives. Some outcomes of this support included:

• Extending small grants to complete the reconstruction of homes in Mississippi for women of color so that they could finally return home;
• Raising the right of public-housing residents in New Orleans to return to their homes and providing assistance for them to do so;
• Supporting a Native American bayou community to repair storm-damaged shrimp boats in time for shrimping season to support communal livelihoods;
• Highlighting the critical mental health needs on the Gulf Coast and determining ways to overcome barriers to mental health care faced by communities of color.
• Establishing affordable, safe, in-home child care services for low-income families in Mississippi and providing training and materials for low-income child care providers;
• Highlighting the need to improve the New Orleans public school system;
• Establishing three summer programs for evacuated and returning youth in Louisiana.

Following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, many immigrant laborers, some without documents, were brought in to provide cheap labor, only to face unfair wage practices and unsafe working conditions. At the same time, many residents who had been displaced by the storm could not find jobs paying living wages that would enable them to return and work. Supporting the organization of workers and defending workers' rights is critical for a just rebuilding of the Gulf Coast. Some outcomes of this support included:

• Regaining wages illegally denied to workers;
• Establishing a worker center for racial unity in New Orleans;
• Educating workers on the Gulf Coastmabout their rights;
• Producing a major report on violations of worker rights in the Gulf Coast recovery process.

Finally, UUSC members and Unitarian Universalists around the country were eager to contribute to the just rebuilding of the Gulf Coast. Through the organization of a multi-year volunteer program that brought in over 2,000 volunteers from around the country, we have been able to support Gulf Coast communities' efforts to rebuild. At the same time, understanding the importance of solidarity over charity, our volunteers have had the opportunity to recognize firsthand the underlying social inequalities that turned hurricanes Katrina and Rita into a man-made disaster.

» Visit the UUA website to make an online donation using a credit card

To donate by check, please make it payable to "UUA-UUSC Gulf Coast Volunteer Program" and mail it to:

Unitarian Universalist Association
P.O. Box 55019
Boston, MA 02205-8253